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About Yale Alumni Magazine | View Entire Issue (March 8, 1899)
Vou:. VE. Naz 3e.. NEW HAVEN, CONN., WEDNESDAY, MARCH 8, 1899, Price Ten Crnrs. THE BROOKLYN DINNER. The Theme was Yale in the War— Speech of Gov. Roosevelt in full —Gen. Woodford and Lieuten= ant-Governor Woodruff Respond — Professor Phillips? Dream. The fourteenth annual dinner of the Yale Alumni Association of Long Island was held at the Oxford Club in Brooklyn, Friday evening, March 3. The occasion, which was a remarkably successful one, was especially devoted to the part played by Yale in the recent war—three of the six speeches being given up to different phases of the subject. The Yale colors, with which the dining room was decorated, were intermingled with the stars and stripes; the “Star-Spangled Banner” was sung alternately with “Bright College Years’; and the important part played by Yale in the Spanish war was suggested by © the presence at the speaker’s table of Gen. Stewart L. Woodruff, ’66, and Lieut. John C. Greenway, ’95. The dinner was presided over by Mr. Joseph A. Burr, *71, and at the guests’ table, in addition to those already men- tioned, were Gov. Theodore Roosevelt, Lieut.-Gov. Timothy Woodruff, Profes- sor Andrew W. Phillips, Col. Tread- well, James W. Alexander of Princeton, and G. F. Price. The presence of Gov. Roosevelt was, according to the com- mittee, owing to the personal efforts of Mr. Woodruff. The Governor sug- gested his own subject, “Yale in the War,’ and also requested that the com- mittee have Lieut. Greenway upon the toast list. The menu was an elaborate one, arranged in XI courses in the form of an annual examination in elective courses at Yale University. The menu card itself was an exact imitation of a Yale examination paper, one of the most interesting numbers of which was a “Sorbet Dwight,” served in a dainty box, the cover of which consisted of a life-like representation of President Dwight in bas-relief. THE SPEECHMAKING BEGINS. The dinner was over and the toast list begun at about nine o’clock. Presi- dent Burr, in his introductory remarks, dwelt upon the social advantages of a college life. “During the war,” he said, ‘we fre- quently saw the sign ‘Men Wanted,’ and now, written across the heavens we see the words ‘Men Wanted’—men of brains, of brawn, of character. these men must be sought within the university walls.” | PROF. PHILLIPS RESPONDS. In the absence of President Dwight the University was represented by Pro- fessor Phillips. Prof. Phillips related an imaginary conversation between himself and President Dwight, which he claimed. to have dreamed. In this vision President Dwight passed numer- ous criticisms upon a recent book of the Professor’s—the chief of which was the fact that throughout the entire volume the letters, x, y, z and others were used. “ “We want an entire change } vant ge in Yale mathematics in the future” broke jn the exasperated president. ‘We don’t want letters! we want figures! I want you to give Yale men a chance to count out those figures they heard about And. - in my> last -report. And I want them to be able to count at least a million by the time of the Bi-centennial. We want to celebrate in some appropri- ate way the Yale scholars, soldiers, teachers, legislators, cabinet officers, jurists and those whose influence for good has been less ostentatious. We ask for a memorial as a birthday gift— a home for Yale graduates, a place for the commencement dinner and all simi- lar gatherings of Yale men.” OVATION TO ROOSEVELT. Prof. Phillips’ remarks were followed by Mr. Alfred Raymond, ’88, who sang a “Dooley” song in honor of Gov. Roosevelt, composed for the occasion. This song, the last line of which was, “And where did this Harvard boy get that Yale sand?” was the signal for the ovation which Governor Roosevelt re- ceived. He was cheered and cheered, given numerous rah! rah! rahs, and only with difficulty found an oppor- tunity to break in and respond to his toast. He then said: Governor Roosevelt’s Speech. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen—I remember in the Fall of 1890 going out to speak at Yale, at the request of Pro- fessor Lounsbury, and telling my audi- ence that it was very rare for a Har- vard man to be able to come there with a proper feeling of self-respect (laughter), especially in the Fall, after the football games. I had waited for fourteen years for that occasion, and I did not know but what I would have to wait fourteen years more. But I only had to wait nine. It has always been an article of faith with me that Harvard and Yale should pull together, that we were natural antagonists, and, therefore, natural friends. In the State of New York this year Harvard and Yale have not only pulled together, but we have “pulled off’ most of the things. The Lieutenant-Governor got there and the two universities, inspired by that suc- cess, then divided up the senatorships and other offices. JI am bound to con- fess that so far as Mr. Woodruff and I were concerned there was another Yale and Harvard ticket in the field. You all know how, in reading reports of athletic events, it reads that Mr. Smith came first; Mr. Robinson, second; Mr. Jones, third, and Mr. White and Brown also ran. Our two opponents on the Goo-Goo ticket, of whom one was a Yale and the other a Harvard man, came under the head of “also ran.” YALE’S HELP IN WAR PREPARATION. Gentlemen, I asked to have the honor of speaking to-night to the toast of what Yale had done in the war be- cause it had been my fortune to see a little of the Yale spirit in the war from two sides. The first was when I was helping to get ready the Navy, and in the next place it was my good fortune to be one among those in the army of Santiago. I shall never forget the eager desire shown by Yale to put her effort where it would do the most good. In dealing with naval matters, when I corresponded with the Yale men as to the ship Yale, I found that they were anxious to do not what would neces- sarily redound to their own glory, but what the Department would desire most to have done in the way of fitting out the vessel to make her most efficient. YALE MEN WHO GAVE THEIR LIVES. _And when it came to dealing with my own regiment, the Rough Riders, I had the honor of serving with a number of Yale men, a half dozen of whose names I could give, of whom THE NINETY-NINE NEWS BOARD. A. C. Goodyear. L. E. Stoddard. H. W. Chambers. R. E. Forrest. M. T. Adams. C. H. Conner, Jr., Bus. Mgr. D. H. Day, Chairman. Photograph by Pach, Ay Seeeoin F. M. Davies. two gave their lives for their country, of whom one, whom you have with you to-night, for himself, in the eyes of all his associates and of his superior officers, had the reputation of being one of the two or three men who on the whole were the best soldiers, the gamiest men, the men who could be depended upon most in a regiment in which bravery was common to all its members. I speak, of course, of “Jack” Greenway. In all that I have to say I must be a little personal; I must individualize, but I only speak of the men of whom I shall- speak because they stand as types. There are many others of whom I could speak, for those you hear of are not all of those who gave up their lives and sacrificed ambi- tion for their country’s good. The war was, of course, not a great war. I remember hearing a comment of-some disgusted individuals after the Santiago campaign that there was not war enough to go around. The war was ‘not a great war because this country was not compelled to put forth more than a small fraction of its strength and the value of the work that was done and the sacrifices that were made merely served to set forth the fact that that work and those sacrifices were but the earnest of what would be done if the nation should be called upon to face some gigantic peril. REMINISCENCES OF JACK GREENWAY. Where one Yale man in 1898 won honor, where one Yale man gave up his life for the flag which he held dear, there were hundreds anxious themselves to have the chance to win honor, ready themselves to give up their lives if called upon to do so. I may perhaps be pardoned a few reminiscences of Mr. Greenway. I do not make any excuse for treating him as an object of note, because of course the mere soldier in him does not compare with the reputa- tion of the football man or the man who caught when “Dutch” Carter pitched. (Applause.) Governor Roosevelt spoke of a letter which he had received from some per- son in Germantown, Pa., saying that Mr. Greenway’s picture taken with Colonel Roosevelt at Santiago had been recognized as that of a missing drug clerk, who was wanted by his family at once. The letter -was read by the Governor and created considerable merriment, particularly the ending, which declared that everything would be forgiven if the man, supposedly Greenway, would come home to his family. When Greenway and his fellow Yale men joined us in company with a num- ber of men from my own college and a number of others, said Colonel Roosevelt, Mr. Alexander from Prince- ton among them, the thing that I liked most about the way that those men came into the regiment was that they did not come in with the desire or expectation of having an easy time, of getting a commission or having any preferment; but they came in one and all simply as Americans, to stand on their own feet, to go un if the war lasted long enough and they proved able to go up, but not to get a favor of any kind. They got nothing except what they earned by earnest and hard work and they claimed nothing except the chance to show themselves just as good as anyone else. In other words, they had realized what it seems to me the graduate of an American university should realize, that his experience does not confer upon him any immunity, but on the contrary it entails on him the duty of showing himself a little better in the actual hurly burly of practical life than those who have not had these advantages. And Greenway and Waller and Young and Miller, who died, and Ives, who died also, Gerard, the captain of one of your track athletic teams, those men like Devereaux, Church and other Princeton men, and Dudley Dean Wrenn, Goodrich and other Harvard men, went into that regiment as troopers, went into it with the cowboys and miners, with the ranchmen and the machinists, with the railroad men an all, taking nothing and asking nothing except that they should be treated on their merits and allowed to show Sr they could work and they could fight as well as any one else. (Applause. )
